Liquification
by midnights-dawn
Summary: Juvia is involved in a terrible incident that has left her dying. As the guild races to save her, Gray is left to confront his feelings as he faces his role as both potential savior... and potential executioner. (Juvia/Gray).
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: I am not as you have probably guessed the owner of Fairy Tail or it's character's in any way. They belong to the actual creators of Fairy Tail. I do however claim this plot and any characters I may make up for it.**

**Authors Note: This fanfiction is written in response to the request of a friend, (like all my fictions admittedly).  
**

**I will post each part as I get it typed up from the drafts in my notebooks.  
**

**Please note I am a slow updater, so don't be discouraged if you don't see new chapters, they will be coming, (eventually).**

**This fic is un-beta-ed, so be gentle. Constructive criticism is appreciated, Flames are not.**

* * *

There were many forms of magic in the land of Fiore, and mages who controlled them. Guilds were formed as gathering places for these mages, places where they could find work, where people could request they do jobs.

Juvia had been part of this world for many years, but for the longest time had never truly appreciated what being part of a guild meant.

Not that she could really be blamed for that though. Juvia had started out as a member of the guild called Phantom Lord, where everyone had only looked out for themselves, and their guild master had been the worst out of all of them.

No, Juvia only came to realize what a guild should be like after the war, the war with Fairy Tail. She was able to witness a guild who looked after each other, treated all of its members like family, and its enemies with whatever level of respect, (or not), that they had earned.

All of those things had been well and good, but they had hardly been the trigger for Juvia's complete turnaround in life. Fairy Tail had been the beginning of the end of Juvia's old outlook. The true catalyst, the one meeting Juvia was positive she would never regret in all of her life, had been at the end of the war. Her meeting with the ice mage sent as her opponent, Gray Fullbuster, the man who changed her life.

Gray himself had no idea why it was that Juvia was so obsessed with him, why she found his actions so important. Mostly, she considered this just another sign of how truly spectacular he is. That he would think that what he had done was 'nothing special'.

On that day, in the wreckage of Phantom Lords mobile guild, Juvia had decided to spend the rest of her life following Gray, (whether he wanted a former Phantom near him or not).

Not even in her wildest dreams had she imagined that she would be allowed near him, let alone able to join the same guild, his family. Fairy Tail had proved her wrong, had welcomed her into their guild with open arms when they had run across her during the Tower Incident. They had even accepted the only person she had liked in her old guild, Gajeel, even though he had done them far more wrongs than she.

Juvia could not imagine being happier than she was now. She had friends, a 'family', who cared for her, and she was permitted to be in proximity, even speak to, her beloved Gray whenever she wished.

No, Juvia regretted nothing about meeting Gray.

Not the laughter at her hopeless infatuation.

Not his annoyance at her constant presence.

Not even the fact that he was currently killing her.

(Literally).


	2. Trouble in Fiore

**Disclaimer: I am not as you have probably guessed the owner of Fairy Tail or it's character's in any way. They belong to the actual creators of Fairy Tail. I do however claim this plot and any characters I may make up for it.**

**Authors Note: This fanfiction is written in response to the request of a friend, (like all my fictions admittedly).  
**

**I will post each part as I get it typed up from the drafts in my notebooks.  
**

**Please note I am a slow updater, so don't be discouraged if you don't see new chapters, they will be coming, (eventually).**

**This fic is un-beta-ed, so be gentle. Constructive criticism is appreciated, Flames are not.**

* * *

Juvia's problems had started the same way trouble usually starts for members of Fairy Tail; a run in with another mage whom inevitably got pissed off.

Now, granted, this particular mage had already been pissed off long before he ever came across Juvia and her friends from Fairy Tail.

As far as she was aware, this particular mage had been travelling through Fiore and turning his magic upon any mage who even looked at him in a way he didn't like.

This was particularly troublesome for the mages of Fiore because the effects of his magic would not wear off for _at least_ six months after taking effect. Since his magic was the ability to screw up the magic of any mage hit by it, this left many mages across the country in a bind.

It wasn't necessarily that his magic had bad effects on all mages hit by it; more that anyone hit with it experienced some unforeseen change in their magic that they had to live with.

Levy for example, had been affected by the magic at the same time as Juvia, and found that all of her spells were now opposite. A fire spell would end up as an ice spell, protection spells were now offensive spells, and so on.

While it was an annoying effect, it was something Levy could easily adapt to and live with until it went away on its own.

Others however, (including Juvia herself), were not so lucky in how they were affected. One mage found himself slowly poisoning everyone around him, and another was mauled by the very animals she had summoned to assist her.

Juvia found that she was uncontrollably turning into her water form, liquefying into a puddle that she would be stuck, (and therefore die), as.

Fortunately, it had been discovered that there was a mage living on the far edge of Fiore who was capable of undoing the effects of the magic cast on them, and that she had successfully cured the mage who had been poisoning everyone.

The problem was however, that this had happened nearly 4 months before Juvia was affected, and meant that the mage with the cure had already gone home again.

At the rate Juvia found herself liquefying, there was no way that anyone would make it all the way to the mages home and back with them to the guild before Juvia went past the point of no return.


	3. Time & Transport

**Disclaimer: I am not as you have probably guessed the owner of Fairy Tail or it's character's in any way. They belong to the actual creators of Fairy Tail. I do however claim this plot and any characters I may make up for it.**

**Authors Note: This fanfiction is written in response to the request of a friend, (like all my fictions admittedly).  
**

**I will post each part as I get it typed up from the drafts in my notebooks.  
**

**Please note I am a slow updater, so don't be discouraged if you don't see new chapters, they will be coming, (eventually).**

**This fic is un-beta-ed, so be gentle. Constructive criticism is appreciated, Flames are not.**

* * *

When it became obvious how bad the situation was Master Makarov immediately called a guild meeting to try and come up with solutions. Gray found himself seated between Droy and Wendy, waiting for the master to tell them what they could do to help. Not that Gray thought that there would be much of course.

Wendy had explained to him earlier that she had been called in with Polyusica and that there had been nothing either of their magic had been able to do to help. With no options left at the guild, they would have to find another method with which to help the ailing water mage, something from outside the guild. The best thing would be to find the mage who specialized in dispelling this kind of magic and getting them to come to the guild. They just didn't have the time.

According to Polyusica and Juvia's best estimates, Juvia had a day at most before she liquefied beyond return, and the mage they needed wouldn't be returning to the Magnolia area for at least two months. Even if they went to her home to get her it was a 2 week round trip and they would never make it in time.

Lost in his thoughts, Gray hadn't even realized at first that the meeting had already begun and tuned in just in time to hear Warren making a comment about getting the mage to meet them halfway.

"We get Levy to send a message to her with her magic and cut the time in half!"

"That's impossible Warren," said Levy. "My magic is all backwards and that spell is too complex to perform in this condition!"

"Well then get Freed to do it! His rune magic would work just as well wouldn't it?"

"Freed is off with Laxus and the rest of the Raijinshuu on that job clearing out monsters in the Mareshka Caves," was Elfman's reply to the idea. "No communications can go in or out of those caves because of the magical properties of the cave walls, it's one of the reasons the job is so difficult, besides the massive monster infestation anyways."

"Do you know when they're expected back?" asked Cana.

"Not for another 5 days at least, and that's assuming none of the monsters turn out to be those 4ft piranha-cockroaches that were living there the last time someone cleaned the caves out, those things are ridiculously hard to get rid of."

"The Mareshka Caves aren't that far, we could get Jet to run over there and... wait... he's still stuck in Ranesh with that broken leg isn't he, which means that plan is off the table too."

"There is just no way to get to her here within a day, whether or not we could find a mage to get in contact," interrupted Gajeel. "Don't get me wrong," he corrected when everyone turned to glare at him, "I'm 100% on board with saving Juvia, I just think you're concentrating way to hard on trying to come up with plans you already know aren't going to be any use, we just don't have enough time."

"Couldn't we just extend her time?" piped up Romeo from his seat over by Mira.

"How do you figure we could manage that, you know some time magic you forgot to tell us about?" asked Max sarcastically.

"There's no need to be rude Max," Erza cut in as she glared menacingly from her seat near the side of the hall next to Lucy. "What did you mean Romeo, did you have an idea?"

"Well, Juvia's liquefying right, turning into water? So can't Gray just freeze her?"

"NO!" the reply was out of his mouth before Gray even had a chance to even properly process the question. "Sorry Romeo, but it just isn't that simple. I mean sure, she won't be turning into a puddle anymore, but she'd have the equally pressing problem of freezing to death as a living block of ice, albeit over a slightly longer time period."

Satisfied that Romeo had understood his argument Gray figured that would be the end of the suggestion. As usual however, Gray had failed to anticipate Juvia's reaction, more importantly, the fact she had even joined them in the meeting at all. (And didn't that say something when he actually found himself worried about the lack of enthusiastic glomping that usually accompanied any appearance by Juvia in his vicinity). Still, there wasn't time to be worried over such a thing when he was fairly certain Juvia had just _agreed_ to be frozen by him.

"You must be crazy. My ice may not kill you right away but it still won't last long enough to get the mage here to save your life!"

"Juvia thinks that Gray-sama's ice is a much better way to die than becoming a puddle. Juvia would much rather go to sleep forever in Gray-sama's ice than to not try anything at all, at least this way Juvia would have a chance."

There were so many things wrong with that statement Gray wasn't even sure where to start, but found himself incapable of finding the words to say anything at all. Not only was Juvia standing against him for the first time he could recall since their original meeting, but she was doing so in an attempt to convince him to cast a spell that may ultimately end up killing her.

As he was trying his best to come up with a way to respond to Juvia's declaration he found his thought process interrupted by Master Makarov.

"Yosh! Now that we have that decided we officially have about a week to work with before the ice will no longer be an option."

After that pure chaos broke out in the guild as people split off into different groups all trying out different methods of travel in order to cover all the bases. Pretty soon the usual fights had started all over the guild hall, with people yelling out all sorts of suggestions from the useful to the absurd.

Gray was so wrapped up in his own surprise that he hardly noticed any of this happening, or even the fact that Wendy had disappeared from next to him, (although, in his defense, even Charla seemed to be having issues finding her).

Everyone was too wrapped up in their own dramas to notice one young girl disappear from the guild hall.

* * *

After about half an hour, the commotion had settled down and everyone but Master, Polyushka, Mira, Gray-sama, and Juvia herself had split off into teams and left on their tasks. Master and Polyushka were there to support both Juvia and Gray-sama, and Mira was monitoring the major communications center everyone had helped set up before they left. (No one had been willing to risk not being able to say goodbye if they were too far away when the time came).

Juvia was never endingly grateful for her guild mates. Despite the effort and energy it was costing her to try and maintain her human form, it was a lot easier to do so knowing just how hard her friends were working on her behalf. Every member of the guild had gone either alone or in a group in order to cover the largest number of methods to save Juvia as possible.

Erza and Elfman had teamed up together to take a magic 4-wheeler and were going to take turns driving so they could go without stopping at all to rest as much as humanly possible.

Bisca, Alzak, &amp; Asuka were taking the trains.

Lucy and Happy were on their way to Blue Pegasus to see if it was possible to borrow the Guilds' magical bomber Christina, or to find out if any of their mages had another solution to offer.

Both Gajeel and Natsu realized that they would be useless on one of the transportation teams and acknowledged that this would not be the correct time to pretend otherwise so they opted to work closer to the guild voluntarily.

Natsu escorted Warren to the Mareshka caves, hoping that once they got inside Warrens' telepathy might be able to get into contact with Laxus and the Raijinshuu.

Gajeel and Pantherlily went to talk with the mages of Sabertooth, most of who were out on a training exercise in one of the more dangerous forests in a town a little ways from their guild.

The rest of the guild had split between notifying the other guilds and trying other routes for trains and magic 4-wheelers.

Most notably, Lisanna &amp; Levy had gone to Lamia Scale, Droy &amp; Max to Quatro Cerberus, and Cana, (accompanied by Charla since she couldn't find Wendy), went to Mermaid Heel.

Honestly, the scope of the operation despite everyone knowing its futility was enough to make Juvia want to cry. The only reason she wasn't currently doing exactly that was because of Gray-sama. He had been very quiet since Juvia had made her decision to follow through with Romeos suggestion.

At first when everyone had left the guild he had gone over and argued with the Master for quite a long time. Eventually he had given in to whatever arguments the Master had used and come over and sat down silently next to Juvia. That had been over an hour ago. Now they were stuck in an uncomfortable silence and that Juvia wasn't sure either of them was willing to be the one to break.

Realistically speaking, Juvia was the one at fault here, what with practically forcing Gray-sama to participate in a plan whose sole purpose was, essentially, to have him kill her slowly while he watched.

No, the fault here definitely lay with Juvia herself, and it would be up to her to, (and she shuddered at the pun here), 'break the ice', so to speak.


End file.
